Irreversible Process
by Ashika
Summary: Let’s start from the end and work our way back – back to where the end began. GSN triangle.


**Irreversible Process  
Author:** Ashika  
**Rating:** T - for a couple of swear words  
**Spoilers:** Play With Fire/Minor (you'd only understand it if you saw the episodes) Grave Danger

* * *

_A reversible process is one in which proceeds in such a manner that every step is characterized by a state of balance, in which the process could be reversed by an infinitesimal change in conditions…Nevertheless, no real process is reversible, as that would require infinitesimal temperature differentials and friction losses, and infinite time._ – Frank Steiger 

……

**November 16, 2009  
Stokes' Home**

Sometimes he wakes up at night, dreaming about soft brown dirt and soft brown hair and soft brown eyes. He dreams he's being buried alive in it – he's drowning so slowly and the scent of peach shampoo permeates his nostrils. He has a black gun and he can see those soft brown eyes watching him, always watching. He can't take it anymore and he takes that gun and pulls the trigger against the glare.

And then he wakes up.

He always looks to the side to stare at his brown-haired, brown-eyed wife and for a few not-so-fleeting moments, he resents the fact that she can sleep – even though half the time she's already awake and watching him through the sheen of unshed tears.

He hates that she cries while he's asleep.

(He never thought it would hurt like this.)

He hates that he sometimes feels guilty – he's secretly relieved that he's one-hundred percent sure the unborn child in her belly is his.

(He never thought it would end like this.)

But most of all, he hates that she's still in love with Grissom.

……

**May 24, 2009  
Desert Palms Hospital**

She doesn't like doctors. They never seem to do much good, even though she had made numerous trips to the hospital with her mother in her childhood. Now her mother is dead and she knows that if the doctors had said something to the authorities, maybe her mother wouldn't be gone.

Although, to be fair – and something in her never wants to be fair, her mother is still physically alive. She's just spent the last twenty years in prison for stabbing Sara's father to death. She doesn't love or care about anyone anymore, least of all her daughter.

She's wondering if there really is a murder gene, even though Grissom denied it, and the doctor smiles in congratulations, before actually saying the words. "Congratulations, you're pregnant. I'd say you're about two months along." His smile is kind and genuinely happy and Sara can't help but try and smile back. But all she can think about is how Grissom had told her there was no murder gene.

All she can think about is how he had always lied to her.

Nick is beside himself; he's grinning his head off. She knows he doesn't doubt the child is his, but she also knows there's a niggling thought in the back of his mind telling him that she wishes the child was Grissom's. Not for the first time, and most likely not the last, she wonders if he thinks he's second best.

He isn't, really. He just isn't the only man in first.

She's glad for this child and hopes that their child will love her and him only – at least for a little while. She wishes she could let go of this painful piece of heart that belongs to Grissom. She wishes that because, honestly, she can't help but hate him almost as much as she loves him.

She secretly hopes their child hates bugs.

……

**April 13, 2009  
Grissom's Office – LVPD Crime Lab**

He only lets himself see her at work. At work, he is the consummate professional. At work, he can pretend they never had a thing, because in all technicality it was forbidden anyway. At work, he can pretend he doesn't love her, even though he does.

It's actually going to be a lot easier from now on. The only time he'll see her is in passing as he leaves and she comes in. Just like their relationship had always been, though in a more intimate manner.

She had finally switched shifts to Days, and he wasn't sure if he was relieved or not. Of course, it was bound to happen and quite frankly he was surprised it had taken so long. She and Nick have been married for two and a half years.

And just like that, Sara's words to him are ringing in his ears like they do every single day. Sometimes he wishes he couldn't hear her at that moment. Sometimes he wishes he had actually gone deaf.

But then, she was wrong anyway. It would never be too late for them. She still loved him as much as he loved her and as much as she loved Nick. But it would never be enough to overcome the pain and betrayal that lurked within each of them.

Maybe that's what she meant when she said it would be too late.

Maybe she was right after all.

Bitch.

……

**November 28, 2008  
Jim Matthews' Office – Marriage Counselor**

Nick really doesn't like the marriage counselor. The guy insists, subtly, that millions of couples are going through the same sets of problems that they themselves are. He wants to laugh.

He almost asks the counselor if his wife had ever loved another man as much as she loved him – and still did. But he says nothing to the man's assumptions and hides his anger behind cutting remarks about his wife.

The counselor asks, "Have either of you had problems with infidelity?"

Sara looks a little bit stricken but answers semi-honestly. "No." It's semi-honest because she is still in love with Grissom, though she would never cheat on Nick.

Nick is slightly cagier. "I would never break my marriage vows." His eyes slide over to her and he can see that she catches the implications. That the only real thing holding him back is his word.

The counselor seems to catch it too, though he only stares blandly at Nick. It almost feels like disappointment.

"So why do you think you're here?" The counselor's voice is soft and unassuming. It sounds a little bit like Grissom's and he's struck by how much he wants this man's approval. He suddenly feels sick to his stomach and he retaliates against it in the only way he knows how these days.

"Because my wife is in love with someone other than me. And he's never going to love her back." As soon as he says the words, he regrets them. He is silent, waiting for retaliation from his wife.

He wishes she would say something. He wishes she would defend herself against his attacks. The Sara he had married would have. But now she takes the abuse as if it were her due.

It suddenly occurs to him that maybe she actually believes this nonsense he is sputtering at her. He feels guilty then, as if he doesn't feel guilty over enough things in their relationship, but he's too weary to take back his remarks. He can't stop himself and he continues to spew bitter, foul-tasting words because he doesn't know how to show her that he loves her and that _his_ love should be enough.

……

**September 29, 2008  
Peter Oakley Home – Home-based Psychologist**

"Why are you here?" The man looks calm. His gold wedding ring glints in the sunlight that floods in from the large window behind him. He doesn't look like the type of man to kill his wife.

But that isn't their job, whether they like it or not. She smiles briefly before turning to Brass, who gives her the go-ahead. She steps around the man with Nick behind her and Brass hands the man the search warrant.

"We've been given permission to search your house for any evidence pertaining to the murder of your wife."

The man mumbles a few words, probably grumbling about the invasion of his privacy, but she can't hear them. She starts in his home office, a comfortable room with a matching brown leather couch and love seat. The room is done in warm, earthy colors and she assumes they are to calm the mind of any of his patients.

She crawled around on her hands and knees for thirty minutes before finding anything worthwhile.

"Hey, Nicky, c'mere!" She is excited and she doesn't think about the fact that this is probably the most excited she has sounded in four weeks. Nick doesn't comment on it either.

He calls out, "Be there in a sec, hun."

A sec turns out to be a full two minutes, but she can wait. The evidence wasn't going anywhere and he's probably doing something important. When he rounds the corner and passes through the doorway she raises an eyebrow. "You find anything, Nick?"

He gives her a wry smile. "Nope, but I guess you did."

She holds up a gun in her latex-gloved hand. "Yeah, I'd say I did."

She bags it and for a few moments they grin at each other, forgetting the pain of the past few years and remembering only the friendship and warmth they had shared before they tried to be something more.

……

**August 10, 2006  
Celebration Restaurant, Dallas  
Wedding Reception of the Marriage of Sidle and Stokes**

He's bitter.

He doesn't look unhappy, or rather, more unhappy than usual. But his jaw is clenched, hidden behind his carefully groomed beard, and his glasses are serving as his eye's only protection from closer scrutiny. If anyone bothered to look too closely, they would probably notice the tears of self-hatred shining in them.

And sweating with his misery, he does the only thing his usually carefully stifled emotions allow. He goes right for her emotional jugular.

"Will you dance with me?" He holds his hand out to her, knows she wouldn't deny him this dance. She never could deny him anything. A whimsical and tired smile stretches across her lips.

"Of course."

They dance, slowly, but nothing too intimate. It is, after all, her wedding reception. And the groom was not him.

His face clouds with familiar emotional pain, and though she sees it she says nothing.

His voice is low and he enunciates each word, each syllable slow and careful.

"I love you."

Her face crumbles and she looks as if she is going to cry.

And he realizes that hurting her like this hasn't made him feel any better. Her quiet sniffle actually strikes his heart like a bolt of lightning, no matter how cliché it sounds.

In her own quiet whisper she finally responds, "I love you, too. But I love Nick."

He guesses that he's just shattered any real hope for happiness with Nick. He can't decide whether he's happy or sad about that. And that has always been his problem: he can never decide.

……

**February 10, 2006  
Grand Canyon, Arizona**

He smiles at her.

He's kneeling on one knee, and the sun is setting behind him. The sky is turning pink and purple and every beautiful color a sunset should be. The breeze curls around them and they both shiver because it is February.

"Sara, please marry me. I love you so much."

She throws her arms around him crying tears of happiness, for once. She thinks he's crying, too, but that's okay. She's so relieved because she is finally, finally, moving past her Grissom saga. And if things continue this way, maybe she can finally say goodbye to his face.

"Of course, Nick. I love you. I love you. I love you." She can't stop saying it because she's finally found a man who isn't going to balk at those words.

She can't help but feel relieved.

She loves Nick and he loves her.

This will be a new beginning – and an end to her one-sided Gil Grissom romance.

……

**Hell if I know, 2003  
Grissom's Office – LVPD Crime Lab**

"I don't know what to do about this."

"I do. You know, by the time you figure it out, it really could be too late."

……

**AN:** That's it. It's a one-shot. I'm thinking about a sequel. Please kill me now.

The whole theory behind the Second Law of Thermodynamics and reversible versus irreversible processes can be found at the following link, minus the spaces of course. You also have to add a slash and a colon because stupid FFN stripped them. They go right after http.

http / www . fsteiger . com / thermo3 . html

And in any case, everyone's done one of these backwards time fics. I just had to add my own. Poor bumbling Grissom. I do support the Geek Love 'ship though. I just rather...got caught up in something that kept running through my mind. I swear to God, I was so desperate to write this, I started it on napkins at Borders. Heh.


End file.
